Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1883 — The Tower. [ARTICLE]

The Tower.

The Tower, says the London Times, is the oldest of the three great monuments of London, and surely it stands at the head of all buildings of its order in the world. It is the most perfect extant example of a feudal castle of the first class, continuously used as a fortress by the same dynasty, and as a seat of the same Government, since the times of the Crusades. When the White Tower first rose beside the Thames, as the buttress and symbol of the Conquest, the nations we call France, Germany and Spain did not exist. It had already seen centuries of great and memorable things before the oldest of the palaces and halls of Europe had their foundations laid. Men talk of the traditions of the Kremlin, the Vatican, and the Escurial; but the first half of the wild history of the Tower was over before a stone was laid of these vast piles. The races who raised the fantastic domes of Moscow or the minarets of Constantinople were wandering herdsmen and robber tribes in Asia when the Tower was the home of the most powerful Kings in Europe. The old Palaces of State of Venice, Florence, Ghent and Bruges, have traditions of great antiquity, and are memorable sources of art, romance and poetry. But their real life has closed for ages. The Tower, which began so long before them, has outlived them all in permanent vitality. The descendant of the Conqueror is still mistress of the White Tower, which for 800 years has guarded the symbols of our national power.